Why investors have fallen in love with small American firms

Believe it or not, corporate America still makes room for the little guy. Around half of working Americans are employed by a firm with less than 500 workers. Nine in ten banks are community institutions that hold less than $10bn in assets. This rather parochial picture, however, is not reflected in the country’s stockmarket, where the falling number of public companies and extreme concentration of value are a concern. Among America’s 3,000 largest public firms, the biggest 1,000 account for 95% of total value. The next 2,000, which form the Russell 2000 index, are collectively worth less than Apple, the world’s most valuable company.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Cap and trade”